In his New Statesman editorial, Rowan Williams didn't really mention what role, if any, faith groups could have in the landscape of welfare services that the government is seeking to reform. Are there ways in which religion can offer a way forward, given the coalition's repeated mantra that things are going to have to be done differently? Certainly faith-based organisations (FBOs) have been seen as a means of helping to achieve the "big society"; though what that actually means is difficult to say.

The term "faith-based" conjures up, for many, the idea of bible-bashing do-gooders or enthusiastic and well-meaning, but essentially impotent amateurs. The reality is – as reality has a habit of being – rather more pedestrian.

The term refers to a broad spectrum of organisations and voluntary associations that have a religious foundation, from overseas NGOs to faith schools. Many are small, voluntary organisations that do some aspect of charity work in their local area. They are financially independent, heavily reliant on volunteers, and the bulk, if not all, members of the FBO are believers. The larger organisations are not overtly religious in their day to day work. In fact it would be difficult to discern any noticeable difference between the work of a large FBO and a comparable voluntary organisation. Trustees and senior management are usually practising members of the faith the organisation is aligned with, but in the main there is no requirement for staff to hold any particular religious views whatsoever.

Some have suggested that the reason for the lack of "believers" is because of equal-opportunity requirements that discriminate against them. However, having worked for several FBOs, Christian and Jewish, I suspect the main reason for a bias towards non-believers or nominal believers at the service-delivery end of the organisation is because the work is low-paid, low-status (though, ironically highly skilled, as is much social care work) and it is difficult to find enough believers wanting to do it.

In addition, many of these organisations have grown in size because of a "contract culture" and a heavy reliance on the income this brings to the organisation (though none make a profit). For many FBOs, it is certain the scope of the work they do and their profile would be a good deal smaller if they didn't work with local and central government. Their own faith communities could not support the same scope of work. In this sense, many of the FBOs, working in partnership with government, present a false impression of the significance of faith in welfare and community services.

The fact many FBOs have a paucity of frontline workers who are believers, and moreover that the model of working is basically a secular social work model, rather limits the claim that faith-based organisations do anything in particular that is different from other voluntary organisations. And, to be frank, it is rather difficult to claim to be different when 80-90% of the cost of providing the service is met by charging the taxpayer the market rate for the FBOs' services. It could be argued that many FBOs are just state welfare by another name.

This is a rather depressing conclusion, but my own experience and research among some of the larger FBOs has found little evidence that there is anything special about faith-based welfare services that are heavily reliant on the taxpayer for their funding. The work they do is very good, but is no different to what other large voluntary organisations are doing.

Yet I have come across some inspirational work among FBOs that have decided to remain free of government money and the obligations and temptations this brings. Rather than aping the existing welfare pattern, as many state-funded FBOs have done, these smaller organisations make use of their own social capital, in terms of volunteers and paid staff. The scope of the work they do is, of course, much smaller, but it seems to have a greater impact on the lives of the people they work with and the local community. Because they are free to organise and design their services as they see fit, there is a good deal of thinking outside the box.

Whatever faith brings to social care – whether that is compassion, motivation, or just a capacity to seek change – it is certain it can't be bought or artificially created. So caution is needed before pinning our hopes on a state-financed faith sector – or voluntary sector for that matter – making a better job of welfare services than the state or private sector. The reality of much state-funded "charity" is that it has become subject to the same complacency and blandness as public services – because it is just an extension of the state. If faith is really to make a difference then it has to do so on its own terms and by its own means. This would mean a loss of income, a reduction in the scope of the work, and, moreover, the present disproportionate profile of religion in welfare services would be greatly reduced. Would this be too high a price to pay? I suspect it would.